The Yale School of Nursing (YSN) mission, to provide better health care for all people, is being supported through a new initiative called the Exploratory Center on Self-Management Interventions for Populations at Risk.

Housed in the school's Office of Research Affairs, the center supports an interdisciplinary approach to the study, development and testing of self-management care strategies that promote health and improve quality of life for individuals and families at risk. The center will both draw on past research done at YSN and help create new tools for the study of self-management interventions.

"This grant award represents a major step forward for the Yale School of Nursing," says President Richard C. Levin. "The extent of expertise in various areas of chronic illness management research at YSN is truly impressive. This is a great milestone for our nursing school and for the Yale community."

According to Margaret Grey, associate dean of YSN and the Independence Foundation Professor of Nursing, "What is so exciting about the center is that it is a perfect fit for the Yale School of Nursing. YSN has always been about enhancing clinical practice. The center will use the interventions we develop to do effectiveness work; that is, we will study them in controlled clinical situations and evaluate whether we produce more effective results."

The center will study the effectiveness of these interventions on people in various populations and conditions.

"Trying to look at similarities across conditions is a novel concept in health care research," comments Larry Scahill, associate professor of nursing, whose key pilot work in the area of child psychiatry is supported through the center's efforts. "It offers the foundation for cohesive thinking and planning of future initiatives, it broadens the spectrum of possibilities for inquiry and it provides a wider access to patients."

A number of researchers from YSN and across the Yale campus, whose work has not formerly been thought of as related, meet as a group each month to share their research and exchange new ideas in a forum titled "The Self-Management Seminar."

"There is a kind of creative energy that comes from having people with similar but not identical expertise review your work," says Kathy Knafl, who oversees the pilot project for the center, titled "Computer Assisted Management of Type 1 Diabetes with Children."

The center is the latest step in the advancement of clinical research at YSN. This work builds on the base of established clinical work such as that of Gail Melkus, associate professor of nursing, who studies underserved populations with diabetes. "The basis of chronic illness management involves the daily work of patients and their families," she explains. "The center addresses that need by going beyond individual studies to draw broader conclusions, and to create methods and models that can be effectively applied to help patients who suffer from a number of chronic illnesses."

The center is funded by the National Institute for Nursing Research (NINR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).